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Jan 28, 2011

Colouring Book Project

This is a great idea if you have young kids in the house or a young niece or nephew.

Here's a really quick and easy way to make Colouring Pictures out of your family Photos. Go to GIMP and download the free software.

Once you have installed the software open up the image you want to convert.

(You can click on the following pictures for a larger image)
Step 1: Brighten the image

Image: Patent Pending Projects

Set the brightness to the maximum. Every photo is different so this might be a bit of trial and error. Setting it to 127 worked on this photo but a brighter photo may end up completely washed out but if you don't like the results just press Ctrl+Z to undo.

Image: Patent Pending Projects

Step 2: Under "Filters" Select "Artistic" and then "Cartoon"

Image: Patent Pending Projects

This tool creates dark lines around everything in the image so, again, try out a few different ways but i found if you set the Mask Radius to 7.0 and the percent black to 0.2 it gave a pretty nice outline.

Image: Patent Pending Projects

Step 3: Remove the Colour from the image.

Image: Patent Pending Projects

Select "Use Black and White palette" and hit "Convert"

Image: Patent Pending Projects

You should now have a fantastic outline of your Photograph ready to print onto A4 paper.

Choose a few photos of different family members and let your Son, Daughter, Neice or Nephew give their Grandad Green or Purple Hair for the first time in their lives!